


The Little Toil of Love

by orithea



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Backstory, Character Death, Character Study, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, but there is a lot of talk about the nature of death and the astral plane, character death relates primarily to Kravitz's work as the grim reaper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 19:12:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12564272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orithea/pseuds/orithea
Summary: “That’s how I died,” Kravitz said, and Taako’s fingers flinched away. Kravitz grasped Taako’s wrist, pulled those fingers up to his mouth for a reassuring kiss.“I…” And gods, there’s nothing Kravitz hated so much as Taako not knowing what to say to him.“It doesn’t bother me.”“I didn’t know.” Taako’s touch was featherlight now, reverent.“And that’s not very fair to you, is it?”So Kravitz told him, told him everything he hadn’t spoken of in all this time.An exploration of Kravitz's life—before and after death—and how it intertwines with Taako's.





	The Little Toil of Love

**Author's Note:**

> So my partner in crime [Lyd](http://archiveofourown.org/users/2impostors) and I love to talk about our Kravitz backstory ideas a lot, and eventually I knew I had to write them. Many of the ideas about his life (and death) are Lyd's; I just made the words pretty. I always say I couldn't write without them, but this time I really mean it. As always, the Kravitz I picture when I write is [theirs](http://2impostors.tumblr.com/post/161399399884/reworked-full-size-old-version-some-people).
> 
> Warnings for non-graphic depictions of violence and death, and implied sexual content. There is a lot of death, but I promise everyone has their happy ending.

_I had no time to hate, because_  
_The grave would hinder me,_  
_And life was not so ample I_  
_Could finish enmity._

 _Nor had I time to love; but since_  
_Some industry must be,_  
_The little toil of love, I thought,_  
_Was large enough for me._

_—Emily Dickinson_

 

Generally speaking, you didn’t see the grim reaper when you died unless you'd truly fucked up. Most souls found their way to the astral plane with ease. It's instinctual, really, unless you've been messing around with forces you shouldn't have.

The crew of the Starblaster—even though everything they’d done was for the greatest cause—definitely fell into the category of those whose spirits would have trouble. Unnatural deaths and resurrection disoriented the soul. The last thing that Kravitz would want for any of them was to wander, adrift between the planes until at last they stumbled their way into much-deserved rest.

The lost, confused souls most often got left to someone else. Someone… more reassuring. Despite what Taako tells him, most people _do_ find Kravitz intimidating. Until those three had come along, he’d had quite the long and perfect record. He’d had hundreds of years to hone his craft, after all. Theirs were the first souls to have made him doubt his confidence in a very, _very_ long time. He had felt better, later, hearing their story and realizing they have that effect on most people.

Kravitz had been one of those less intimidating kinds of reapers once; it’s a position best suited to the newly dead in Her service. There had been a time when he was new, so long ago.

\---

“You should have seen his face when he saw her,” he tells Taako that evening. Kravitz is flushed and warmer than ever, blood and love thrumming under his skin as he realizes that it's the exact same sort of face he'd make if they'd been apart that long.

“I could never—” Taako says, and he doesn't finish the sentence, but that’s okay. Kravitz knows what he means, that they were thinking the same thing. There is salt on Taako’s lips when they kiss.

Kravitz counts himself beyond blessed—perhaps for the first time—for what he is. They’ll never have to suffer that.

\---

Taako had asked him about it once, early on, whether he had gone right into the bounty hunting business after his death.

People don't often take an interest in his work; they find it distasteful. Mortals especially. Taako is—well. He's something special. No one had asked Kravitz about his life in so long, or really acknowledged that he might have _had_ one.

“No,” Kravitz had answered. “There was another grim reaper before me. There usually are a few of us, actually—we were running a bit short staffed before Lup and Barry joined in. Anyway, when he was done The Raven Queen asked me to take his place.”

“You can just stop?” Taako had asked, as though it’s a possibility that never occurred to him.

“Everyone gets tired someday.”

\---

Lucretia would have died alone if they let her. She still holds herself a bit apart from the others, paying a penance she thinks she deserves.

Fortunately the rest of the crew are every bit as stubborn as she is—even Taako softens as the years go on. Some things may never be forgiven, but a bond like the one they share can never truly remain broken.

Kravitz is there in the room with them, holding Taako’s hand at the foot of the bed. Lucretia’s own hands clasp Barry’s on one side, and Davenport’s smaller palm rests in the other. Tears dampen Merle’s beard as he leans close to tell her good-bye.

Lup waits on the other side to guide the way. Only Kravitz can see the smile break on Lucretia’s face when they see each other again. She is radiant; they both are, together.

\---

Kravitz hadn't told anyone about his life since it ended. Even he didn’t think of it often. He had a new life, one that had lasted exponentially longer than his first.

“My parents owned a tailor shop in Waterdeep.”

Taako’s eyebrows had knit together, trying to place it. He hadn't recognized the name.

“It was one of the cities turned to glass in the relic wars.”

“Oh,” Taako had said. Then, “Fuck.”

“The things I remember were gone well before then. I have been dead for a very, very long time.”

“Still…”

Taako thinks he's terribly sentimental. He’s probably right, but not in this particular case.

“It didn't bother me. I’ve wondered what is left there, though.” He had paused a moment, picturing it. The details were hazy with time, and a certain lack of care. None of this had mattered in centuries. “We didn't live in the city proper—we were too poor for that. But the shop was there, in the district where all the nobles liked to do their shopping.”

“A tailor shop for nobles, hmm? Explains a lot about”—Taako had waved a hand up and down in front of Kravitz appraisingly—“this whole thing you have going on.”

“Is that a complaint?”

“Darling, no one loves this more than me.” Taako had grinned and curled his fingers around the edge of Kravitz’s collar. “You’re the only person I know with taste nearly as good as mine.”

Taako’s ensembles, whilst flattering and very much _him_ , were about as far away from Kravitz’s own as it can get. But Kravitz couldn’t deny that the fabric was typically quality, and it is a certain level of inherent taste that makes the whole thing work. Even Lup doesn’t quite have the same sort of flair.

“Is it really flattery when you’re mostly complimenting yourself?”

Taako had shrugged without a hint of shame.

Kravitz had laughed, then looked down at himself appraisingly. The image he had of himself as a young man was a distant thing, more or less someone else entirely in most ways. The dead resemble their living selves, but reapers especially were free to make improvements. He hadn’t needed fangs or the ability to see in the dark when he was alive. He hadn’t needed fine clothes, either. Oh, but he wanted them.

“I didn't dress like this when I was alive, anyway. We made the clothes, but we certainly didn’t have the money for them.”

“But you wanted to.”

“Of course I did. And if you can’t get what you want in death, well…”

“I do _very_ well alive,” Taako had said, and pulled Kravitz into a kiss with a tug of his hand wrapped around Kravitz’s finely crafted tie.

\---

“Hello, sir,” Angus says. He hasn’t called Kravitz “sir” in decades, and even though his voice is deep and rich now—grown with the rest of him—Kravitz hears that long ago boyish cheer inside his soul.

“Hello there, Angus. Let’s you and me take a little stroll.” He offers his right arm, elbow bent, and nods his head towards it; Angus links arms with him without hesitance. It’s dark in this part of the astral plane, though Kravitz has no doubt that Angus could manage on his own. He’s heard that souls at peace can feel something inside them, guiding them to where they need to be. Kravitz wouldn’t know.

“Nothing’s wrong, is it?” Angus asks as he falls into step beside him.

“Not at all, but between you and me, _someone_ was worried about you.”

Angus smiles at that, briefly, then looks concerned. “If you’re here, then he’s alone right now.”

“He is, but I think he’ll be okay. He asked me to do this for him. For you.”

They walk together quietly for a while. Angus looks around as they do, studying the plane around them. Kravitz has grown used to it, but he supposes it is a bit odd to see for the first time—a conglomeration of different architecture, open spaces, the odd dream-like structure that defies the laws of the material plane that no longer apply in this one. All a part of functioning as a little bit of the afterlife for everyone, shaped by each soul who passes through. There are other spirits walking among them; few pay attention as they pass.

“Kravitz?”

“Mmhmm?”

“What’s it like here? I mean, what do people _do_ all the time?”

Kravitz stammers for a moment because he’s not entirely sure how to answer. He knows what he does, he knows what the imprisoned souls of the Eternal Stockade do, but the happy ones like Angus? He’s not actually certain.

He’s saved from having to answer by the way that Angus’s face lights up.

“I see them!” he tells Kravitz excitedly, then turns to yell into the distance. “Mom! Grandpa!”

Angus’s hand drops from Kravitz’s arm, and Kravitz steps back to let him leave. Angus starts to trot away from him, but turns back one last time.

“Tell Taako everything was okay, please? Tell him I’m happy to be here.”

And then he’s gone.

Kravitz comes home and holds Taako for a long time when it's over.

\---

Taako only rarely came out and voiced his curiosities, but Kravitz knew when he had something on his mind. Like this obvious obsession he had with the scar on Kravitz’s throat, tracing its ragged edges with fingertips and lips like it’s a puzzle he’ll solve through touch so he’d never have to actually _ask_.

It had started early on; Taako always did have a thing for his throat, from the first time he yanked open Kravitz’s collar desperate to get his mouth on newly exposed skin. Kravitz had thought it was just a quirk of Taako’s, back when this thing between them was something fun and unnamed. But after they got more serious, and then after Kravitz—and everyone else—heard everything there was to know about Taako, Kravitz realized it was something more. That for the first time in hundreds of years, someone was curious about his past.

The Day of Story and Song had given Kravitz a gift, but it had robbed him of something as well: the gradual, shared intimacy of learning about each other together. They hadn’t talked about that much. Maybe they should.

“That’s how I died,” Kravitz said, and Taako’s fingers flinched away. Kravitz grasped Taako’s wrist, pulled those fingers up to his mouth for a reassuring kiss.

“I…” And gods, there’s nothing Kravitz hated so much as Taako not knowing what to say to _him_.

“It doesn’t bother me.”

“I didn’t know.” Taako’s touch was featherlight now, reverent.

“And that’s not very fair to you, is it?”

So Kravitz told him, told him everything he hadn’t spoken of in all this time.

He told him about growing up in Waterdeep, brushing elbows with nobles when he delivered clothes worth more than anything he’d ever own to their homes. He told him that he had been a musician, a gifted one who was lucky enough to make a modest living from it. Told him that he can’t remember how to play now, hadn’t tried in centuries.

He told Taako about his husband. It hurt, it fucking _hurt_ , because nothing he could recall now is more solid than a feeling, the impression of happiness and flickers of giddy smiles shared in bed and over the kitchen table. He deserved more than this, he thought, no matter how much time he’d had to move on. They had been married less than a year, and he deserved _more_.

He told him how he had been taken, walking home one night. How he’d woken up in the dark, scared and alone. He couldn’t stand it anymore after that, had nightmares about being lost in a vast darkness even after he was already dead. Being able to see in the dark was one of the first things he fixed about his form when he discovered that he had the power to change it.

He told him that they were necromancers, and that they’d slit his throat, let him bleed out for the power they could harness from the act of sacrifice taken by force. The Raven Queen had made them pay for it later, but it was too late for Kravitz.

“What happened to your husband?” Of course he would ask that. Taako knew what it felt like to be the one who’s left behind.

“I met him when it was his time, even though he didn't need me. He'd ended up having an easy life in the end—I was the worst thing to happen to him, by far.”

\---

“Merle Highchurch!” he calls with a smile in his voice. “Still the richest bounty I've ever hunted, and I’ve come to collect.”

“Aww, c’mon. I think I’ve got one more left in me, don’t ya think?” Kravitz gives him a dubious look and Merle laughs.

“Was worth a try.”

Merle looks down at his right arm, flexes stout Dwarven fingers for the first time in over a century.

“Figured I owed you that one,” Kravitz says sheepishly.

“I’ll say, buddy.”

\---

As it turned out, the house he had lived in all those years ago was still standing. So was the graveyard.

Kravitz hadn’t known where his grave was, but it wasn’t a large cemetery—only a few dozen graves with well-worn tombstones, enclosed in a rusted iron fence whose gate Taako took great pleasure in blasting open. They had walked together, hand in hand, searching the stones until they found one that read _Kravitz_.

Well, several that read _Kravitz_ , in various states of legibility.

“This one’s my mother’s.” The inscription had faded with time and weather, but the few letters that were still distinct struck a chord inside him. _Emilie_. He hadn’t remembered, hadn’t thought of her outside of the distant concept of _mother_ for so long. Seeing her name—part of it, at least—carved there in stone, he could just recall her face.

“Aww, Krav, you never told me that was just your last name. I thought you were pulling the ol’ one name brand like yours truly.”

“Well,” Kravitz had said sheepishly, “it’s what they’ve called me since I died. Just Kravitz, you know? I sort of… forgot? That I had another name, I mean.”

Taako had nodded. “I think Lup knows ours. Lucretia wrote it down somewhere, maybe? I don’t know, the whole two lives thing got me kind of mixed up about it, so I’m not even sure if the one I remember from my family on this planet is the real deal, y’know? Anyway, I don’t sweat it—I’m Taako.”

Kravitz had felt his soul glowing inside of him, had thought it must shine through his face, through the thin skin of his hands and the jagged scar on his throat, so that everyone who looked at him could see him lit up like a beacon with how much he loved this man. He felt… understood, deeply, and in a way that he hadn’t thought would ever be possible for someone like him. He was fucking _dead_ , he’d had his chance at life a long time ago and had given up on ever getting anything like it again. And then the universe had sent him Taako. Taako, with just the one name, the only person who made him feel known.

“The one and only.” That’s all that Kravitz had said, but the look on his face must have spoken volumes on its own. Taako had risen up on his tiptoes and planted a kiss on Kravitz’s forehead.

“Love you too,” Taako had said softly. He nodded his head to the grave marker next to Emilie Kravitz’s. The stone was crumbling and the name hadn’t been entirely readable. “This one’s yours?”

“Must be.” He had felt removed from that fact, then a little guilty for not feeling as attached as he had thought he should. He still couldn’t remember his name. It was a strange thing to not care about. He had wondered, briefly, if his was more worn than the others because someone had sat here, touching the epitaph with his fingers so many years ago.

“That looks like a lot of letters, babe.” Taako had sounded delighted. It was true that the name looked longer than the others, stretched from one side of the tombstone to the other. They could make out an “M” at the beginning clearly enough. It hadn’t rung any bells.

Kravitz had shrugged. “Believe me when I say I wish I could tell you.”

“Hmm,” Taako had said. “Maybe this wasn’t my greatest idea, bringing you here.”

“It wasn’t your worst one either. It’s just.” Kravitz had sighed. “Sad, but also not that either.”

“I _think_ I know how to turn this day around. It’s the one simple Taako-patented solution to most of our problems, if I’m being honest with you—”

He was listening, but not looking at Taako; the stones had demanded to be seen right now. Still, he smiled to himself whilst Taako talked.

“—if you bang me here it _instantly_ becomes a happy place, my man.”

Kravitz’s head snapped up and he had known he was going on a face journey, one that probably involved a momentary skull appearance. He thought he’d never quite be used to the things Taako says—had hoped he never would be, at least.

When Kravitz had recovered himself and looked at Taako again he was grinning, hip cocked, as he leaned against Kravitz’s headstone. He bit his bottom lip and Kravitz laughed, then closed the space between them to kiss him.

“Anywhere I’ve been with you is a happy place.”

“Gross.”

Kravitz had smiled against Taako’s mouth then kissed him harder.

“I am not fucking you on my grave,” he had said when Taako pulled back to take a breath.

Taako had somehow made an extremely skeptical noise whilst his tongue was in Kravitz’s mouth, and that had done half the convincing.

\---

“No one has ever fully explored the astral plane,” Kravitz says, offhandedly, whilst they walk. He doesn’t mention that’s mostly because it’s less fixed than the material plane, always shifting and expanding to accommodate the needs of the dead. It’s not strictly _necessary_ work.

Davenport doesn’t answer immediately. He’s walked beside Kravitz quietly since they met, observing the landscape around them where entered the plane. It’s one of the more remote sections, one that looks like a thickly-treed forest. Keen observers could spot the faces hidden within the trunks, mouths twisted in silent screams. Kravitz can hear them.

“Sounds like a bullshit assignment,” Davenport says in the end.

“Maybe,” Kravitz answers. He’s always thought of the captain as a no-nonsense sort of man, and perhaps he deserves the same in return. “But it’s one I thought you might enjoy.” _It’s the least I could do_ remains unsaid.

“Interesting enough work, I guess. And I could stop if I get tired of it, right? No dressed up indentured servitude like Lup and Barry.”

Kravitz purses his lips. That’s not an argument he’s willing to rehash.

“You could. And you’ll find time passes differently here. Maybe it won’t be…” Kravitz trails off, not sure what he meant to say.”

“I’ll do it. And—” Davenport sighs. “Thank you for thinking of it for me.”

Kravitz places a hand on Davenport’s shoulder. It’s meant to be comforting but just feels awkward, so he pats his shoulder twice and pulls it away. “I’m sorry, you know. That you never made it back, even though—well. If we could send you home, we would. But frankly what the seven of you did should have been impossible in the first place. Not even She can manipulate the planar systems that way.”

Davenport smiles sadly. “At least I’ll always have that. Still, you know why I tried, don’t you? The people we left back home—they don’t end up here.”

“I’m sorry,” Kravitz says again, and shakes his head.

\---

It hadn’t been much of a surprise when Kravitz was given a promotion of sorts in the aftermath of the (averted) apocalypse. The chaos of the Hunger’s invasion had created a higher than usual amount of wayward souls on the material plane, and there was no one The Raven Queen trusted more to oversee Her work there than Kravitz. The fact that the material plane was home to Taako—perhaps the only mortal who could say that he had met The Raven Queen once on vacation and charmed Her until she preened—and that Kravitz had been spending so much time there already was certainly mere coincidence.

They made a comfortable life together. (“Til death do us part,” Taako had said, and then laughed so hard that there were tears in his eyes. It was a convenient excuse.) Kravitz still kept busy with work, but he was much more available than he had been when he had spent most of his time in the astral plane. Taako’s popularity hardly waned through the decades.

The years were—unequivocally—happy. Still, there had been an unspoken agreement between Kravitz, Lup, and Barry: they didn’t leave Taako alone for very long. No more than a day or two at the most. Taako got melancholy when left to his own devices. Melancholy and careless.

“Is it just me or is he being really reckless lately?” Barry asked one day, hushed and huddled in the kitchen whilst Taako rested in the bedroom. Kravitz kept leaving to check on him, but every time Kravitz peered through the door Taako was still sleeping soundly, evidently no worse for the wear after a near-disastrous attempt at dabbling in wild magic.

“If he dies I’m gonna kill him again,” Lup muttered. She sounded angry but had spent the night wringing her hands and checking on her brother nearly as often as Kravitz had. “He used to do this shit back then, when it didn’t matter because we’d get our bodies back in a year or whatever. But it _matters_ now. He knows that.”

Kravitz said nothing. They had already known what he thought—Taako never should have been the one of them to be left alone.

\---

“I didn’t know the dead could go grey, darling,” Taako says, running his fingers through the silvery streaks threading Kravitz’s hair.

“It’s a sympathetic greying,” Kravitz says with a laugh. “I have to match your distinguished beauty.”

Taako grumbles. He hates to be reminded of his age, though in fact the lighter strands are all that mark the passage of time, which has always been kinder to elves than any other race. It’s a small thing, but Kravitz understands why it bothers Taako. Lup hasn't changed at all in over three hundred years.

“You’ll never match me, but you come pretty damn close. S’why I married you, handsome.”

Kravitz flushes with pleasure and buries his face in the crook of Taako’s neck.

It’s been a comfortable day. A lazy one, just the two of them in bed together with no thought to the passage of time, the demands of life outside of what exists right there. They both get lost in it, in each other. A faint part of Kravitz can’t believe that they’re still this wrapped up in each other after all these years.

It’s not the sort of day when Kravitz would expect—

“I think I’m done,” Taako says quietly.

Kravitz goes still and then pulls his face away from Taako’s neck so that he can look up at him. Taako doesn’t quite meet his eyes.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been doing.” It doesn’t sound like an accusation—just weary. “You, Lup, Barry. Babysitting me. And _fuck_ , it really says something that everyone who cares that much about me is already dead.”

“Plenty of other people care about you, Taako. Very much.”

“Fine.” Taako shrugs dismissively. “Just the ones I give a shit about, then.”

Kravitz can’t keep the hurt from his voice. “There’s nothing I can do to change your mind?”

Taako does look at him now, earnestly, imploring.

“I need you to know that it has nothing to do with you, Krav. Our life together? I could never have imagined something this good.” He squeezes Kravitz’s hand in his own, then pulls it towards him to kiss Kravitz’s palm before lacing their fingers together. “Hey, I am _not_ giving up on us—I know you’ll be with me on the other side. And I know technically I’m not that old for an elf, but babe, just think about my life. I’ve done enough living for half a dozen people and I’m _done_.”

And, well. Kravitz can’t really argue with that. He knows what he needs to do.

\---

Lup stays with Taako whilst it happens. There’s no way that Kravitz would be anywhere other than right here waiting for Taako when it’s time, holding his hand steady when he crosses into the plane.

“Hello, lover,” Taako says, delight bubbling from every syllable.

Kravitz can’t be sad, not here with Taako beaming at him, incandescent with joy. It’s evident now, the weight that’s been lifted from him. Kravitz hopes someday he’ll feel the same.

They’ve never touched each other like this before, obviously. It’s Taako’s first time free from a physical body, and here Kravitz isn’t quite corporeal either, though his spirit is more substantial than Taako’s. Every point of contact—hands, shoulders, hips when Taako swings towards him playfully—sends a frisson, some small crackle of energy, running through them both.

 _It’s going to be amazing when we kiss_ , Kravitz thinks, in the same moment that Taako reaches up and kisses him.

It’s good to be right.

“What’s next, bubeleh?” Taako asks when he’s had enough—for now.

“Usually my job is to escort you to where you need to go. I think it’s fair to say, though, that where you need to be is with me.”

Taako snorts. “Yeah, fair enough.”

“And I have some important business with The Raven Queen—”

“Oh, she _loves_ me,” Taako says, as though Kravitz could forget.

“—so I suppose where I go, you go.”

\---

Both of them know why he’s there before he even arrives. There’s just the three of them—Kravitz, Taako, The Raven Queen—there, in the vast room that serves as Her seat. Usually there’s a flurry of activity here; managing the dead is more work than most people would think. She’s given them a moment of privacy for this.

“My lady,” Kravitz says as he stands before her, “one favour?”

“I owe you many more than that. What is it?”

“I have a family again. Friends, too. And all of them are here now,” Kravitz says, haltingly. He knows that he could just ask Her, but they have enough history between them that he feels the need to explain. “I—I don’t want to be on the material plane without them, and while I know that you could move me here again, in all honesty? I’m tired. I’ve always wondered what happens to all the others when they died and came here, what life was like for them, and now I want to know for myself. I’d like to retire.”

Kravitz can hear Taako gasp, but he doesn’t look over towards him. He keeps his eyes fixed on The Raven Queen, who extends her hands to beckon him closer. When he does so, she embraces him for a long moment, then releases him and takes a step back. She cradles his head in her hands, watching him with an intensity and fondness he hasn’t seen from her in centuries. Memories pass in the long silence between them.

“You’ve been with me for such a long time, Maximilian Kravitz,” she says at last.

 _Maximilian_. How could he have forgotten?

He can just see Taako out of the corner of his eye, mouthing his name with exaggerated disbelief, and laughs. She does as well, then sighs wistfully.

“You know why I made you a reaper, don’t you? All that anger trapped in your soul when you arrived here—you would have tried to escape, I knew it as surely as I knew anything. And then I would have needed to hunt you down, throw you in the Stockade, all for something that was never your fault in the first place. But I saw promise in you, Kravitz, which you have repaid me tenfold.”

“Thank you.” He had suspected, perhaps, but to hear Her say it, to paint the picture of the afterlife he very likely could have had, is a different thing. “Thank you for my second chance.”

“Don’t tell the others, but you always were something of my favorite.” He can feel himself flushing with praise. And there’s something else—the magic emanating from Her. It suffuses through him, starting at the touch of Her fingers on his skull and spreading downwards to the rest of his body.

She releases him, and he looks down to see that his body no longer bears the mark of Her service.

“Go rest,” She says to him. “Be happy.”

And for the last time, hand in hand with Taako, Kravitz does as She wills.

**Author's Note:**

> A note about Taako's death and the tag for implied suicide: my thoughts regarding elves is that at some point in old age they just sort of decide that they're ready to die of natural causes. The whole thing about elves and near-immortality makes it muddled. It was not my intention to imply that he took his own life, but it was brought to my attention that it could be read that way and I didn't want anyone to be caught off guard.
> 
> As mentioned in the story, Kravitz has nightmares about his death, and Lyd drew [a gorgeous, gory version of one of them](http://2impostors.tumblr.com/post/166887744304/full-size-twitter-but-unfortunately-you).
> 
> Other fun notes: Lyd decided that Kravitz had been from a family of tailors ages ago, as an explanation for his fancy taste in clothes. While writing this I discovered that the surname Kravitz actually was an occupational name for tailors, which is a great coincidence.
> 
> If you also like to yell about Kravitz you can find me on twitter [@lichsona](https://twitter.com/lichsona) and [tumblr](http://lichsona.tumblr.com/).


End file.
